Presence

Originally written January 5, 2007

There was a time where I would be the obvious character flaw in a crowd, the personality that strayed furthest from the center, but those days of future once past are not among us here.

The Child. She is as innocent as the driven snow, with enough safeguards in place to make sure she will never be touched, as she has been taught, by an unkind, improper emotion. Her world is closed off to the realities which we live in, and her mind can only handle so much derivation from her expected norm. At the mercy of her father’s wishes, while possessing the bitterness of a jaded older woman, she is hopelessly adrift at sea.

The Graceful. Older than her companions, she tries to recapture those days of long past but can never escape her feelings of justified superiority. With more experience in the ways of the world comes a holier than thou attitude she could not run from even if she tried. Holding on to a past that is a world away, refusing to accept her new reality for what it is, she hides her insecurities in a cloud of elegance and maturity far beyond what her years should allow.

The Playboy. Understanding the ways of the world not meant for him, out for himself and all the women that can be had, he is the shallowness people detest. Law school is just another excuse for him to extend the life he had in college all the while seeking to be more than who he is, looking for that next moment that will bring him security. He is oblivious to the disapproval that surrounds him.

The Prom Queen. Compassionate for others in a way that few would understand, having led a life of extravagance and expecting the same for lives to come, she moves through the crowd with a familiarity of being at home. She has been here before, but for her moment of weakness, having deprived her of the life she so desperately sought. And in the end, she maintains her warming exterior, while suffering deeply for what she has done.

The Survivor. Losing the world he had built for himself because his own body had turned against him, returning home for treatment for the cancer eating away at his brain, understanding his own mortality but pushing through school and life anyways, determined to go out leaving nothing on the table. A born leader refusing his title to focus on his own diminishing world, he stands nobler than the whole lot of them.

The Estella. Wise in the ways of what will take her life far beyond what her years among us should allow, an impossibly driven and focused woman. She understands what has to be done but can never quite execute her plans as they have been drawn up, a time bomb waiting to disrupt the plans of even the most entrenched men. Seductive yet vulnerable, she remains simply indescribable and nothing short of a mystery even to me.

We’re not the same. We’re different tonight.

No one comes to Hong Kong on their own imagination. Everyone we encounter, they are here because they are running away from those responsibilities found elsewhere, they are coming home to a life that they must assume by default, and God knows I am no different. China calls it one country, two systems.

There was never such a choice for us.